Midden Investigations at Hofstaðir, Mývatnssveit, N Iceland, 2002 (field report)
Part of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) project
Author(s): Megan T. Hicks
Year: 2002
Summary
During the 2002 field season of the Landscapes of Settlement
Project (directed by Fornleifastofnun ĺslands with collaboration by the NABO
cooperative) the CUNY team was tasked to locate midden deposits surviving
around the medieval to early modern farm mound on the southern side of the
home field and assess their prospects for further excavation. Two areas were
investigated with small test pits: 1) the area of a midden mound drawn by Bruun
in 1908 and subsequently leveled by bulldozer, and 2) a midden concentration to
the NE of the area Z excavation unit that had produced bone and artifacts in a
test trench profile dug in 2000. The area of the bulldozed midden was
approximately located and two 1 x 0.50 m (pits A & B) and one 2 x 0.50 m (pit C)
test pits were dug. These showed clear evidence of surviving well stratified
cultural deposits directly below the modern turf surface, and all produced small
amounts of well preserved bone as well as ash and charcoal. The three pits were
otherwise very different in stratigraphy, with pit A showing a deeper deposit
marked by multiple in situ tephra (including the LNL sequence and probable
medieval tephra above the H4 prehistoric tephra approximately 60 cm below
modern surface). This pit did clearly show cultural materials (including some
displaced H3 tephra) directly above the probable LNL tephra sequence, but it is
not completely clear if turf cutting or other disturbance is the cause of this
superposition. The second pit B showed a much shorter total profile, reaching H4
at 40 cm above modern surface and producing ca 20 cm of cultural deposit. LNL
and medieval tephra were less evident in this pit. Pit C provided a 2 m
continuous profile and yet another set of tephra, including the 1477 (absent in
pits A & B) both 1158 and 1104, and a clearly sterile layer separating the cultural
material from the LNL sequence. The area Z midden investigation confirmed the
presence of an extremely rich early modern (18
th
-19
th
c) midden overlying a
stratified sequence of peat ash and medium brown cultural deposit. It appears
that a significant bone and artifact collection could be made in this area
documenting the final centuries of occupation, and that earlier midden materials
(probably less bone and artifact rich) are preserved below.
Cite this Record
Midden Investigations at Hofstaðir, Mývatnssveit, N Iceland, 2002 (field report). Megan T. Hicks. Fornleifastofnun Íslands, NABO. 2002 ( tDAR id: 3363) ; doi:10.6067/XCV87H1HPR
Keywords
Material
Dating Sample
•
Fauna
Site Name
Hofstaðir
Site Type
Agricultural or Herding
•
Hamlet / Village
•
Midden
Investigation Types
Site Evaluation / Testing
Spatial Coverage
min long: -17.5; min lat: 65.3 ; max long: -16.5; max lat: 65.9 ;
File Information
Name | Size | Creation Date | Date Uploaded | Access | |
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hofstadirmiddeninvestigations2002.pdf | 674.72kb | Oct 16, 2010 10:43:14 AM | Public |